Democrat El Paso mayor sending migrants to NYC ‘to help them’

The Democratic mayor of El Paso, Texas, said Sunday that the goal of his migrant bus program is to help riders “get to their destination.”

The Democrat-led city acknowledged recently it has been sending its own migrant buses, independent of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, to New York City due to how overwhelmed local facilities and non-profits are.

“The people are not coming to El Paso, they’re coming to America, and that’s something that’s really important,” El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser said on ABC’s “This Week.”

The mayor said many of the asylum seekers are from Venezuela but about half do not have “sponsors” in the US, leaving them without obvious destinations.

“A sponsor is someone where it’s a family member or a friend, where they’ve arranged and they have transportation to go to their destination,” he added.

New York City Mayor Eric Adam’s office has denied reports of an agreement to accept as many as 200 migrants a day from El Paso while condemning Abbot for much of the same.

Leesar thanked Adams for his cooperation on resettling migrants at a public city council session last week.

The long-welcoming El Paso considered busing migrants to other cities as early as May, when federal immigration officials told city leaders that 500 asylum-seeking immigrants from Venezuela made up of women and children would be released into the streets unless the city could house them.

On Monday, the El Paso city council approved a $2 million contract for a local charter bus company to help bus migrants out of town over the next 16 months.

Fox News reporter Bill Melugin reported last week that El Paso was considering sending a maximum of four buses every single day to other cities.

“Primarily New York City though, because they say that is where most of the migrants are requesting to go,” he told host Harris Faulkner.